History of Friedrich II of Prussia — AppendixCarlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Appendix
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
Produced by D.R. Thompson
HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
FREDERICK THE GREAT
By Thomas Carlyle
APPENDIX.
This Piece, it would seem, was translated sixteen years ago; some four
or five years before any part of the present HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH got to
paper. The intercalated bits of Commentary were, as is evident, all
or mostly written at the same time:--these also, though they are now
become, in parts, SUPERFLUOUS to a reader that has been diligent, I have
not thought of changing, where not compelled. Here and there, especially
in the Introductory Part, some slight additions have crept in;--which
the above kind of reader will possibly enough detect; and may even have,
for friendly reasons, some vestige of interest in assigning to their new
date and comparing with the old. (NOTE OF 1868.)
A DAY WITH FRIEDRICH.--(23d July, 1779.)
"OBERAMTMANN (Head-Manager) Fromme" was a sister's son of Poet,
Gleim,--Gleim Canon of Halberstadt, who wrote Prussian "grenadier-songs"
in, or in reference to, the Seven-Years War, songs still printed, but
worth little; who begged once, after Friedrich's death, an OLD HAT of
his, and took it with him to Halberstadt (where I hope it still is); who
had a "Temple-of-Honor," or little Garden-house so named, with Portraits
of his Friends hung in it; who put Jean Paul VERY SOON there, with a
great explosion of praises; and who, in short, seems to have been a
very good effervescent creature, at last rather wealthy too, and able
to effervesce with some comfort;--Oberamtmann Fromme, I say, was
this Gleim's Nephew; and stood as a kind of Royal Land-Bailiff under
Frederick the Great, in a tract of country called the RHYN-LUCH (a
dreadfully moory country of sands and quagmires, all green and fertile
now, some twenty or thirty miles northwest of Berlin); busy there
in 1779, and had been for some years past. He had originally been an
Officer of the Artillery; but obtained his discharge in 1769, and got,
before long, into this employment. A man of excellent disposition and
temper; with a solid and heavy stroke of work in him, whatever he might
be set to; and who in this OBERAMTMANNSHIP "became highly esteemed."
He died in 1798; and has left sons (now perhaps grandsons or
great-grandsons), who continue estimable in like situations under the
Prussian Government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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